Friday, January 6, 2017

Holiday Service Levels - More Art Than Science

Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house
we went. The holidays are over and we have flipped the page to 2017. January is a great time for looking to the
future and also time to reflect on how things went the past year.

This past holiday shopping season saw record-breaking sales
for retailers, which had Community Transit buses working hard to meet the
demand of riders heading to work, shopping, school, or just to grandma’s house.

Our data gurus tell us that Sundays are typically the
lowest ridership day of the week and our planning gurus tell us that lower demand
calls for us to have a Sunday service schedule on major holidays such as New
Year’s, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Historically, those holidays
have lower ridership than a typical Sunday. Did you ride on any of these
holidays in 2016?

For example, on Thanksgiving 2016 we had 4,423 boardings
which, is about half of a typical Sunday and much less than a typical
Thursday (which is about 35,000 boardings). While this is a small ridership
number compared to non-holidays, it shows that we were able to meet
transportation demand for more than 4,000 people who had to find alternative solutions
when we had no holiday service.

Why do people ride the bus on Thanksgiving? Families and
friends like to be together on this day and share a meal or a football game, so
that’s one reason. We can also assume that a lot of these riders were heading
into work for the Black Friday sales that start Thanksgiving night, or to be
the first shoppers to get the hot deals. Were you working or hitting the sales
on Thanksgiving?

Christmas Day had only 3,687 boardings, living up to its
reputation as our lowest ridership day of the year.Christmas this year also
landed on a Sunday which called for a Monday, December 26, “observed holiday.” Based
on historical ridership trends, we ran a Sunday service schedule with no commuter
service that day. So we want to know, were you going over the river and through the
woods or did you hit the salt mines on December 25 and 26?

New Year’s presented a planning quandary. The holiday was
on a Sunday, but the “observed holiday” on Monday, January 2, had our planners
coming together for an action plan. We originally planned only a Sunday schedule
that day, which means no commuter service. But we thought some businesses or
go-getter types would want to kick off 2017 right away. The action plan was put
into place to add three commuter routes to meet the possible demand of people
heading out of Snohomish County into Seattle. Routes 402, 413, and 421 were
supplemented to the Sound Transit Route 512 service for those
riders headed back to work right away. This
was the first time Community Transit added extra commuter service on a major holiday.
Turns out we had more than 11,000 boardings on January 2,
which tells us there was definitely a demand.

Just when we thought the holidays were over we jump right
into 2017’s first holiday -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 16. Because many businesses remain open on several "minor" holidays like this one, we run regular local service but a reduced commuter schedule. Let us
know how you use Community Transit on the holidays! Happy New Year!

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